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bonfire

Pronunciation: /ˈbɒnfaɪəɹ/

The English word “bonfire” has 8 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A large, controlled outdoor fire lit to celebrate something or as a signal.
  2. A fire lit outdoors to burn unwanted items; originally (historical), heretics or other offenders, or banned books; now, generally agricultural or garden waste, or rubbish.
  3. Something like a bonfire (sense 1 or 2) in heat, destructiveness, ferocity, etc.
  4. A fire lit to cremate a dead body; a funeral pyre.

verb

  1. To destroy (something) by, or as if by, burning on a bonfire; (more generally) to burn or set alight.
  2. To fire (pottery) using a bonfire.
  3. To start a bonfire in (a place); to light up (a place) with a bonfire.
  4. To make, or celebrate around, a bonfire.

Etymology

PIE word *péh₂wr̥ From Middle English bonnefyre (“a fire in which bones are burnt, bonfire”) [and other forms], by surface analysis, bone + fire. Replaced earlier Middle English bale-fyre, from Old English bǣlfȳr (see balefire). The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) notes that bonfires, originally lit as part of midsummer celebrations, were not generally associated with the burning of bones.…

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